1. Startup advice… in three words – GoSee
2. 8 great ideas for small businesses – GoSee
3. Track your time for free with Toggl (and on your iPhone) – GoSee
Thanks, Jason M. Blumer
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2010.
Last time we got to listen in on a hotel lobby bar conversation between entrepreneurs Bob, Susan, Omar and Ingrid as they talked about their biggest frustrations in business.
You probably found yourself connecting with one of their frustrations more than the others. Why? Because you share part of Bob, Susan, Omar or Ingrid’s entrepreneurial DNA. So what is this “entrepreneurial DNA” hogwash? You ask.
Put simply, it is your predisposition and modus operandi in business. See, the reason you hired your office manager or entered into the last joint venture wasn’t a random occurrence. It was a predictable event based on your DNA. I know, I know. I’m really overselling this thing so let’s get to the brass tacks shall we?
If I told you that you were about to get on a highly entertaining and profitable ride over the next 5 minutes, would you jump on? Or do you have something else you need to handle at this very minute? (Note: Check to make sure voicemail light is not blinking…) Assuming you said yes, click the link below. You’re going to see my smiling mug on a video followed by the opportunity to discover your unique entrepreneurial profile. A couple of minute later, you’ll see my smiling mug again on a video (watch the whole video before clicking the “next” button).
http://www.bosiceo.com/bosiquiz
Just follow the instructions I give you and the ride will continue. In your final step, you will get to download a complimentary copy of BOSI Entrepreneurship, my book in electronic format (thank Blumer for that gift). In that book, you’ll find the key to unlocking your entrepreneurial DNA. More importantly, you’ll begin to dive into your predispositions in business (and life) and begin to understand why you do the things you do. You’ll discover why some things in business come so easy to you while other things feel like you are pushing a bowling ball through a garden hose!
Most importantly, you’ll start to look at your business plan, HR strategy, marketing/lead generation and operations differently than you ever have before. Chances are, you’re doing a lot of things very well for your entrepreneurial DNA. That’s your God-given intuition at work. But I hope that BOSI Entrepreneurship will help you find some faulty DNA in your plan as well. DNA that was “grafted in” from people at your mastermind group, networking event or family who don’t have the same DNA as you. DNA that if allowed to remain in your business plan, could cause the same damage as free radicals cause on the human body.
So take 5 minutes right now and take the BOSI Quiz. Discover your entrepreneurial profile. Then download your complimentary copy of BOSI Entrepreneurship and dive into the deep end of the BOSI Entrepreneurship pool. (We’ll provide the floaties if needed).
http://www.bosiceo.com/bosiquiz
In my final post in this series next week, we’ll go back to Bob, Susan, Omar and Ingrid and look to solve their frustration using the strategic decisions that are best suited for their entrepreneurial DNA.
Oh, one last thing. It would be fun to have you come back to this post and submit a comment with your BOSI profile. Not that we’re trying to be matchmakers or anything but maybe, just maybe you’ll meet someone who has a very complimentary BOSI profile to you. You can connect and structure a joint venture, form a partnership or just go out to a romantic dinner. We’ll leave those decisions up to you.
The biggest myth in entrepreneurship is that we are all the same. Make sure to find out how unique you really are!
The entrepreneur’s biggest fan, Joe Abraham is a serial entrepreneur who has been involved as founder, executive or advisor in the startup and growth of companies in over a dozen industries from financial services to motorsports. Today, he is managing partner at En Corpus, a startup and small business accelerator that serves closely held companies. Joe is a featured speaker at industry events and an expert to the media on the topics of entrepreneurship, small business development, business startup and free enterprise. He lives in the Chicago area. You can connect with Joe and learn more at http://www.JoeAbraham.com.
- Image by chadinbr via Flickr
Remember? Remember when the government coerced you to buy a house in 2008 to stimulate the economy? Remember the $7,500 credit you got, and how ticked you were when everyone else waited and got an $8k credit? And it was so bad because you have to pay your $7,500 back, and they get to keep their $8k. Bites.
Well, that payback starts this year. Did you forget? Starting in 2010, you have to put $500 in taxes on your tax return for 15 years until you pay back the $7,500 to the government.
Details:
1. Put this payback on your 2010 return (due by April 15, 2011),
2. Use Form 5405 to give the government back their money – $500 per year,
3. If you sell your home before the 15 years is up at a loss, the debt is forgiven,
4. If you sell your home before the 15 years is up at a profit, you will be taxed on the lesser of your profit or the balance of the credit.
Have fun.
Thanks, Jason M. Blumer, CPA
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Lets listen in on a hotel lobby bar conversation between some entrepreneurs as they talk about their biggest frustration in business.
Bob, the manufacturing company owner: “My biggest frustration is having a vision and drive so big that my key executives and staff have a hard time keeping up. I mean, they are the best people money can buy, but they just don’t get the big picture. I’ve laid out all the systems they need to scale this company up in a big way. But they just don’t take true ownership of the opportunity. I have gone through at least half a dozen VP’s of sales but we’re still nowhere near where I expected us to be.”
Susan, the CPA: “My biggest frustration is standing out in a crowded marketplace of competitors. I know most of my competitors in town. None of them really come close in knowledge, expertise and service quality. I do all the networking events. I ask for referrals. We’ve done some advertising with marginal results. But we haven’t cracked the code on getting clients at the pace we’d like.”
Omar, the MLM Leader: “Well, I don’t have any employees to frustrate me and I don’t plan to have any. The product I am marketing is so unique that I really don’t have any competitors. So neither of your frustrations are a big deal for me. However, my big issue is getting hung out to dry when business opportunities go south. It almost seems like success is a moving target. Just when I have landed the right income stream and started to build it up, someone or something pulls the rug out from under me and I have to start over.”
Ingrid, the scientist: “Wow! Just listening to the three of you makes my head spin. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know the first thing about business. I feel like I am stuck at square one. I’d much rather have someone take my product and market it for me. Better yet, I wish they’d just go and build out the entire company and pay me a small royalty. I don’t want the fame or fortune. I just want my product to get into people’s hands.”
As you listen in on the conversation in the lobby bar, do you find yourself resonating more with Bob, Susan, Omar or Ingrid? Chances are, you connected with one of their frustrations more than the other three. And that says a LOT about you as an entrepreneur. A LOT more than you can even imagine! It begins to expose your entrepreneurial DNA. See, the biggest myth in entrepreneurship has been that we are all the same. That all entrepreneurs are cut from the same piece of cloth. That we are essentially like the “borg” in Star Trek…assimilated into wearing the same uniform and deploying the identical game plan. But is that really true? Are Bob, Susan, Omar and Ingrid really the same? Will they build the same size or type of business? Do they have the same appetites for risk and opportunity?
What about yourself? Are you like every other entrepreneur in your rolodex? Do you think, operate and manage the same way they do?
The answer is a strong and emphatic NO…right? All entrepreneurs are NOTthe same. There are actually 4 dramatically different “DNA’s” in the world of entrepreneurism. Each DNA has it’s unique set of strengths, weaknesses and frustrations. Each DNA also has it’s own achilles heel.
You’ll learn more about that in our next post. For now, here’s the question: Are you more like Bob, Susan, Omar or Ingrid? Use the comment box above to weigh in!
The entrepreneur’s biggest fan, Joe Abraham is a serial entrepreneur who has been involved as founder, executive or advisor in the startup and growth of companies in over a dozen industries from financial services to motorsports. Today, he is managing partner at En Corpus, a startup and small business accelerator that serves closely held companies. Joe is a featured speaker at industry events and an expert to the media on the topics of entrepreneurship, small business development, business startup and free enterprise. He lives in the Chicago area. You can connect with Joe and learn more at http://www.JoeAbraham.com.
- Image by Beverly & Pack via Flickr
Here are the details on the Haiti Relief tax write offs:
1. Donations to charities helping the Haiti earthquake victims can be made in 2010, but deducted on your 2009 tax return
2. The charity you are giving money to has to be a qualified charity (search for eligible charities here), typically foreign entities will NOT count
3. You have to make the cash donations (as opposed to property) before March 1st of 2010 to qualify
4. It’s just like any other charitable donation – you have to itemize first before it will actually help you (it doesn’t apply to you if you claim the standard deduction)
5. You have to have a receipt for your donation, and if you texted “haiti” to the Red Cross and gave some cash through text message, then that is deductible too (but keep your phone bill as a receipt)
Thanks, Jason M. Blumer, CPA
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Finding great clients is a tricky proposition when running your company. It’s not something you do once, but something you constantly work on and make a focus of your service to your clients.
Here are some thoughts…
1. It’s really more a matter of making sure you don’t let the un-great clients in your company in the first place. That takes skill and courage. Study who comes in the front door. If they bear common traits of being whiners, ungrateful and self-absorbed, note to self – don’t let them in next time! And go ahead and fire them while you’re at it.
2. Finding and developing great clients takes a long time. Building relationships is the best way to find great clients. They tend to trust you more, pay you more, say “thank you” more, understand your failures more readily, etc. Time builds trust, and trust is what makes a great client relationship.
3. Social media is certainly a way to build relationships now while developing trust with clients around the globe. This too takes time. You’ll bump into someone on Twitter as you exchange conversation, and a relationship will develop. It’s happened to us many times, and now some of those folks are clients and guest bloggers.
4. I think traditional advertising is going away for those industries relying on relationship to grow. Mass advertising can still be viable for some companies, but if you are developing great clients, then relationship is what you want, not the latest call from someone who saw your billboard on the side of the highway. Be careful with mass advertising. It can suck your company dry and possibly send you mediocre clients.
5. You’ll probably get most of your clients from your current clients (aka Referrals). That tells you where you should be spending your time advertising!
6. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is always talking about customer experience. He stopped spending money on traditional marketing and instead spent money on customer experience. He lets his customers do his advertising for him. The experience your clients have with you is going to make them talk… good or bad. You want client evangelists, which means you have to be careful who you let become a client in the first place (point # 1). Make the experience your clients have with you begin from the very moment they meet you, hear a response from you after the first meeting and finally buy a product or service from you. Develop internal systems to speak to them the minute they hit your door, and make that continue for a few weeks after they leave. Remember, experience with you is everything when it comes to developing great clients.
Laura MacPherson, Creative Director of northstar creative (a reader of the THRIVEal blog and a client) recently commented on a post and asked for a followup to our post. We’re glad to oblige. Thanks, Laura, for reading!
- Image via Wikipedia
This has come up before, but there are some rules you need to know about the Home Buyer Credit:
1. We can’t efile your return if you are claiming the Home Buyer’s Credit because the IRS is making us attach the settlement statement to your return. Dang. *there goes all those fraudsters that would buy up a bunch of houses just to get a $6,500 credit*
2. If it’s a mobile home (thus, the pic of my summer home to the left), then there is no settlement statement… you gotta produce something! Include the signed sales agreement with the return or something to keep the Agency off your back.
3. Building a home? First, you better talk to your tax preparer and make sure you move in on the right day… if you don’t, it could cost you the credit. Second, go ahead and bring the Occupancy Certificate to the tax meeting while you’re at it so we can attach that to the tax return too (I ain’t kidding).
4. If you are taking the $6,500 Home Buyer’s Credit (where you have to live in your current home for 5 out of the last 8 years), then prepare to prove it. I’m talking records of property tax statements, proof of insurance coverage, etc.
5. And since everything is getting sent via snail mail, the IRS is ramping up their staff to handle the deluge of paper returns. The Agency won’t start processing returns with the Home Buyer’s Credit attached until mid-February (so it’s just about time). I think they are reprogramming their computers or something like that. Don’t expect your check anytime soon… it’s going to take longer to stuff the envelopes. Don’t hate.
Thanks, Jason M. Blumer
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